


Cigarettes Don't Always Kill

by teamug



Category: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983), Senjou no Merry Christmas | Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence | Furyo (1983), The Seed and the Sower
Genre: M/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 07:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2420936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamug/pseuds/teamug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his office, Captain Yonoi wishes to impart some valuable advice and a small gift to one Jacques Celliers, who really, really doesn't smoke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cigarettes Don't Always Kill

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a loooong time ago and it hasn't seen much proof-reading/editing, so apologies for any typos/hanging sentences/grammatical fumbles/inaccuracies/terrible writing. Thank you for persevering.

In Yonoi stalked, straight as a mine prop, ascetic, but too slight and elegant to be a Samurai soldier. Ascetic didn't quite cut it. Ascetic was something Holy and sacrificial, willing and, ultimately, desperate to be pure. Yonoi was not only ruthless, but also guilty and frustrated -- and Celliers, now that Lawrence had instilled the idea, was sure he knew why.

Yonoi pulled something from his pocket: a crushed cigarette box plastered with the Imperial flag, with white creases running up the sides like the spindly roots of a young plant. Yonoi never had the nerve to give up anything with the flag on the front. In it he stored bundles of odious military-issue cigarettes that smelled to Celliers like dry sweat and melting solder, something akin to the dense summer afternoon miasma floating around the science laboratory at his old school. 

Celliers, like the majority of the men, knew little of the Japanese save the little Lawrence had told him about Shinto and the Sun Goddess, and the gory details every British soldier had to know before they came to Insulindia. The cruelty of the Japanese, Lawrence said, was powered by something that they wouldn't be able to understand while they were in the face of it, and it was best not to start trying until it was over. These ones used their whips like an extra limb, thrashed them like a conductor encouraging an orchestra into a frenzy with a baton. 

Celliers had never seen Yonoi get all that much use out of his whip. Perhaps that was for his benefit; and more was the pity, because Yonoi radiated fear and rage no matter what he was doing, and there was no fooling anyone. His self-assurance came and went, as though he were trying to command while balancing on the top of a moving train. He endeavoured admirably to hide it, but this Celliers felt more intensely whenever they were near to each other. He began to feel self-concious and embarrassed, as though they oughtn't to have been left unchaperoned. 

Yonoi removed his cap and placed it on the desk next to Celliers' hand. Then he lit a stiff white cigarette and held it between his lips. He opened his mouth, and out twisted the smoke, wafting up in neat lines like the kanji on the poster pinned to the board behind him. A list of military axioms, Celliers presumed. What did they say?

"I used to be like you," as usual Yonoi grappled carefully with the words, and it took him time to ease them out, "I wanted to rebel."

"Is that so?"

"Has Lawrence told you about my past?"

Lawrence shook his head. "Not really."

This seemed to irritate him. Out bulged the lower lip, and there bunched up the familiar crease on the brow. This, from Celliers' third party experiences of him, usually heralded some sort of tantrum which was often headed by a whip; but, as Celliers expected (and to the relief of his sunburn), he recovered quickly. "Once, I wished to transcend my oppressors, because I knew my real place was above them," he went on, and only now did he seem to see Celliers -- but the look was a tentative one, "Do you know yours?"

Lawrence had told him what a disappointment he'd been, denying his own transcendence, as Yonoi put it. At first Celliers had only assumed that he'd conveyed some sort of weakness; but now, he suspected that it was something different. Perhaps, in refusing to kill him, he had jilted Yonoi at the altar: he had denied their romantic, honourable death in tandem.

He nodded. "I think so."

Undeterred, Yonoi nodded once: a sharp, military bow. Then he cocked his cigarette packet open with his thumb and slid another white stick out of it.

"Do you smoke?" He asked.

"Not really," Celliers, feeling ill at the very notion of smoking the stick, shielded himself with a hand as Yonoi offered it his way, "No. No, thank you."

He had forgotten himself. He had been too brave, as this was one insult too many. "You see, our boys really take pains to be prudent with rations," he motioned to the cigarette slotted between Yonoi's fingers and told himself he knew what he was doing, "The same cigarette is often shared between two or three men. Do you mind?" Lawrence would have said it was inspired. He'd have much rather have sucked on one of the worms they dug up when they were making burial pits, but there was, it seemed, no other option.

He might have asked Yonoi to bed. Yonoi looked at him as though some significant part of the message had been omitted. Perhaps he assumed his delicate grasp of English had compromised his understanding.

Tentative, with his lips pushed together, he lowered the cigarette. Celliers hesitated not; the cigarette smelled much fouler up close, but it was the card in his hand. He took it, and blew the ash from the tip. Then he sucked in the smoke, trying his best not to choke. It tasted far worse than it smelled, and he wondered how long whatever the tobacco was made of had been left to rot. He could have been smoking a dead man's finger.

He held onto it for a few more seconds than necessary, pressing his lips around it, wetting it as best he could. Then he plucked it from his lips and breathed the smoke through his teeth.

It was only as the very last vestiges of the cloud had gone that he ran his tongue over his lower lip and met Yonoi's eye. 

"Thank you."

Fear and rage. There really was nothing more to him than that.


End file.
